In a well-known progressive disease involving the flexor tendon of an articulation (in particular, the articulation of one of the fingers of a hand), the flexor tendon becomes progressively shorter, thus reducing, and eventually totally preventing, the possibility of movement of the bone elements which are connected by the articulation.
When the disease reaches an advanced stage, the two bone elements are angularly locked to each other, without any possibility of relative movement because the tendon is contracted and no longer able to extend.
Under these circumstances, to date, surgery can be performed with difficulty and gives uncertain results.
Indeed, it should be noted that the surgical operation means that the flexor tendon must be returned to the non-contracted position (where the two bone elements defining the articulation are substantially parallel to each other).
According to the current state of the art, to return the flexor tendon to its non-contracted configuration, the specialist surgeon uses devices equipped with elastic attachments which make it possible to apply traction to the two articulated bone elements. These devices, however, are relatively ineffective and, in particular, imprecise. The risk, therefore is that of incorrectly deforming the bone elements or incorrectly lengthening the tendons connecting the bone elements.
Moreover, these devices are often particularly cumbersome and cannot therefore be applied to all the joints of the human body (such as, for example, the bone elements of the middle finger).
Another strongly felt need in the orthopaedic field is that for a device that can be used to correctly restore the bone structure after a trauma.
For example, it is frequent for one or more bones not to set properly as a result of incorrect treatment of an injury.